I always get a grin reading Ellen Wedum’s perceptions of what really happens in the world. Her recent Little Bear fire letter was no exception.

Her expertise on the subject is doubtful beginning with firefighters cutting down “300-foot-tall trees.”

Ms. Wedum might do well to consider the fact that New Mexico has no 300-foot-tall trees. As a matter of fact, the state’s tallest tree is a 156-foot Rocky Mountain White Fir. Our tallest Ponderosa Pine is 114 feet in height. Nope, no 300-foot-tall trees anywhere in New Mexico.

Equally inaccurate is her condemnation of Congressman Pearce — who she blames for a 4 to 5 percent U. S. Forest Service budget cut for each of the past three years. Her conclusion is firefighters are now unable to extinguish forest fires due to Republican budget cuts. I believe she misses the mark on both her facts and her conclusion.

Congressman Pearce has the right to ask U. S. Forest Service officials the tough questions. It seems to me that during the events of the Little Bear Fire a lot of things were done right and some things were wrong. Congressman Pearce seeks answers to help avoid repeating a tragedy in our dry and over-grown forests. I salute both our firefighters and Congressman Pearce for their hard work and dedicated service to our country and community.

In the meantime, I await her next letter setting us all straight on the events of the day.

Yours very truly,

Phelps Anderson

Roswell

Street closures irritating

Dear Editor:

For years we have been going to a friend’s house on Sycamore to watch the Fourth of July fireworks display.

Not this year. We couldn’t get there from here. While there always has been heavy traffic it was easily manageable. But this year with RPD out in full force and barricading every road, there was no way to get there. And traffic was a nightmare.

We started out about 8:20 to get there by 8:30 as we usually do.

Got down Eighth Street to somewhere and it was blocked off.

So we turned around and went back to Union and and went to Second. Drove down Second to Sycamore and turned down Sycamore. At Eighth Street Sycamore was blocked and so was Eighth Street at that point.